Steinberg Media Technologies has announced the immediate availability of Cubasis 2, the next iteration of the music production app for the iPad, including refinements to existing features, alongside a line-up of brand-new tools and capabilities.

Steinberg's Team Lead & Product Planning Manager Lars Slowak comments: "After releasing over a dozen 'smaller' updates to the first version of Cubasis, we now chose to give this release a major version increment due to the many new, full-blown features that this iteration has to offer. It's certainly also worth mentioning the effort we invested in tweaking the overall app so as to make it even more powerful and intuitive."

Cubasis is Steinberg's sequencer app that strongly gravitates toward its desktop equivalent, the Cubase music production system, providing the same look and feel as well as project compatibility that allows for easy import to Cubase. Basically, Cubasis provides all the required tools to arrange, mix and edit music productions, including many effects and hundreds of instrument sounds.

Cubasis 2 comes with the zplane élastique 3, a real-time time-stretching algorithm to tempo match audio loops, alongside the new pitch-shifting feature to align musical keys. The professional channel strip boasts its own effects suite, adding a cut filter, compressor, noise gate and tape/tube saturator to each channel.

Spin FX is the latest plug-in addition with a wide variety of DJ-like style breaks, tape stops, stutters and filter effects, while the library of the included Micrologue virtual analog synth has been expanded by more than 75 new sounds. With the TAPE expansion, MicroSonic also receives sounds that recreate the trademark sound of the '60s.

Other highlights introduced in version two include a redesign of the user interface, auto quantization of MIDI notes and proven compatibility with iOS 10.

Next to the release of Cubasis 2, the streamlined Cubasis LE 2 version is now also available and already included with many hardware bundles (such as the Yamaha wireless MIDI adapters and the CME Xkey keyboards) that unlock the LE version's full potential. By upgrading to the Full Feature Set via in-app purchase, Cubasis LE 2 receives the same feature additions and enhancements introduced in Cubasis 2. Further in-app purchases are the Cubasis FX Pack 1 with six delay and reverb effects and the Cubasis FX Pack 2 with six classic effects like wah and rotary speaker.

Availability and pricing

Cubasis 2 is available as download through the App Store. The price is 49.99 euros including German VAT. Existing Cubasis customers receive the update to version two free of charge.

The Cubasis LE 2 Full Feature Set IAP is available within Cubasis LE 2 for 29.99 euros including German VAT.

The FX Pack IAPs are accessible through Cubasis 2 and Cubasis LE 2 for each 6.99 euros including German VAT.

For the next two weeks, however, both Cubasis 2 and the Cubasis LE 2 Full Feature Set IAP are offered at a 50% discount. Pricing for the FX Pack IAPs will also be reduced by over 40% throughout this period. The demo version of Cubasis LE 2 is freely available on the App Store.